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Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

This is truly sad. Despite having, collectively, a larger GDP than the US, Europe has not been at the forefront of too many technologies, compared to the US and China. [Pharmaceuticals might be the main exception.]

Sadly, I think the disadvantages will compound. Europe doesn't have a Google-type company with expertise building data centers, and are now behind on AI scaling. Without cheap access to orbit, they have missed out on building Starlink-like LEO constellations.

I wish I knew why this is and how to fix it.

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One other exception is ASML.

They make the best photolithography machines, for me, it is simply the most advanced piece of tech humanity has created, look it up, everything about EUV lithography is insane.

In a sense all modern tech goes back to them, including AI. They make the machines that make the chips that make AI.

Excellent example.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

I suspect that Europe is much more "reasonable", in this sense, than the US and China.

It’s a neat quote but it’s not a clean fit.

You’d expect the “unreasonable man” of Europe to be behind but stable and decent, whereas these days much of Europe can’t maintain living standards or political stability.

There’s also an argument to be made that China is putting in a very solid performance in a very reasonable manner. See: methodical capture of global EV+energy markets, soft power expansion into the global south, cold-eyed deflation of financial bubbles, 5 year plans, and so on. At this rate, I’m not sure that the freedom and unreason loving “man” that is the US will be able to compete either.

> whereas these days much of Europe can’t maintain living standards or political stability

Those are the side effects of Europe trying to offset its fertility rate with immigration, yet failing to explicitly address the enculturation tension.

It's remarkably how people so smart in one area (demographic issues and solutions) can flounder so badly in another (addressing cultural friction with immigrants).

Especially considering history has "a few" examples of exactly this same thing, although possibly Americans have more experience in modernity.

The cultural friction is not a real issue except for the extreme right. The real issues are the same as everywhere: standard of living is going down for younger people while wealth is being concentrated in fewer individuals. Those wealthy individuals are the ones who benefit from promoting this immigration/cultural friction theory.

It is a real issue, because it's human nature. Groups don't like outsiders.

Pretending that isn't human nature is why anti-immigrant parties keep attracting surprising support in elections.

And that tension shouldn't be swept under the rug and ignored via the 'it's just the far right' excuse.

It's a thing. It needs to be addressed. Which doesn't necessarily mean implementing anti-immigrant policies, but does at least mean some form of address (e.g. government support for enculturation, advertising benefits of immigration, etc).

i mean the building data centers is kind of a bummer, yeah. but if Europe misses out on AI and space travel, well, so be it. i could name 20 more important issues than these buzzhypes.

This is obviously subjective, but I think both AI and space launch are hugely important technologies.

AI unlocks a new class of automation that will lead to productivity increases. In some cases, it literally saves lives, as Waymo-class autonomous vehicles are much safer than human drivers.

Cheap space launch unlocks LEO constellations like Starlink, which Europe is already trying to build. Even without fanciful uses like space datacenters and asteroid mining, access to space gives us a host of communications, imaging, and location services.

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